In July, we reviewed the compilation of Gary Trudeau's Doonesbury strips focused on Donald Trump. It seems like a fitting time to revisit that review.

What’s really scary about Yuge! is just how timeless Trudeau’s take on Trump is. A lot of times, diving into the archives of Doonesbury is like stepping into a time machine where you have to refamiliarize with the zeitgeist of the day. Maybe it’s because Trump is so much a major figure of 2016 but Trudeau captures the essence of the man in all ages. For a lot of the historical figures that Trudeau poked at, he provides signposts that easily separate his version of the person from the real ones. Just look at his incorporeal versions of both President Bushes. But there’s none of that visual distancing of the strip Trump from the real Trump. So the words that Trudeau satirizes from years past feel so current because they’re words we’ve heard repeated from Trump over the past couple of years during his Presidential run.

October 4, 2015

As the collection catches up with the events from the past year, Trudeau’s comics become all the more damning because there’s no way to make the cartoon character spew more ugliness and vitriol than the man himself has done. It’s so bad that some of the strips are even direct quotes from Trump. It’s like Trudeau can’t go far enough in his own humor to skewer Trump any more than his own words can. The only joke and exaggeration that Trudeau can make are Trump’s medusa-like hair that hides the suggested baldness of the character.

Cover of the Next Week

RESIST! is a pro-female, anti-Trump cartoon anthology, created and published in time for the inauguration of President Trump on Friday. Created and organised by Francoise Mouly and Nadja Spiegelman with Desert Island Comics owner Gabe Fowler, it will be a free 40-page protest publication featuring mostly female comic book creators and cartoonists.

Current Mood

Scott is a recovering English literature major, spending the past 10 years writing about comics. Truthfully, he just doesn't know what to do with his time other than writing about comics. It's a sickness. His old blog is at www.wednesdayshaul.com but he currently blogs and tumbles (is that a verb yet?) at Ilostitatthecomicshop.tumblr.com.